


Intervene

by twoandfour



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoandfour/pseuds/twoandfour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benedict has been suckered by his flatmate into being the opinion-bearer on an important shopping excursion. He's hopelessly in love, and she has no idea, until Fate intervenes in the form of a stuck zip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will earn its "explicit" rating in part 2. :)

"Come on, don't look so dour! We're clothes shopping, not holding a lemon-eating contest."  
Benedict's flatmate Amy slapped playfully at his arm and he volleyed back a glare. "You're going clothes shopping. I'm along to give fashion advice, apparently. Which... why me, again, of all people? Hell, I can barely dress myself, left to my own devices." 

Amy rolled her eyes and pulled the car up to a little strip of boutiques tucked away on a London side street. "Someone put on their Pouty Pants, today," she muttered with a smirk. Ben snorted a tiny snort of frustration and flailed his hands. 

"Besides," she pressed on, "you're a man. And you know what you like to see on a woman. This job isn't going to get itself; I have to look the part. You're not here to pick my clothes out for me, just to tell me whether or not what I'm trying on is appropriate for a PA in the entertainment industry."

He sighed and glanced over at her, another protest at his lips, when she went in for the kill.

"You're my best friend and my flatmate, and you know more about this side of the industry than I do, Ben. This could be the entry I need to get me where I've always wanted to be, and I genuinely need your help."

Dammit. There she went with the sincerity, again. It was one of the things he lov- liked most about her. She was genuine, all the time, and knew just how to phrase things in a way that praised rather than making one feel like a complete arse. The "best friend" part of it, though... Well, it wasn't her fault that it pricked at his heart and made that tight little ball of sour that had building in his middle over the months coil even tighter. She didn't know, and he didn't have the balls to tell her, and if it all went sideways when he eventually- inevitably- let it slip, he'd have only himself to blame for a flat empty of her sunshine.

He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, darling. You're right. You've asked my help, and I'm being a knob about it. Let's go find you something spectacular."

She beamed at him, immense brown eyes lit up like Christmas, and squeezed his hand. His heart did a little somersault but he quelled it before it had the chance to tell on his face.

Roughly forty-five minutes later, he was stationed on a sofa just outside a neat row of fitting rooms with solid doors that allowed a show of bare feet underneath. After the whirlwind of pulling pieces and chatting with the shop girl (who was a *huge fan*, apparently, and kept side-eyeing him from between racks of frocks) and being bombarded with questions and choices and the sudden appearance of a wall of frilly underthings, he stretched his legs out and allowed his attention to drift. 

To drift where it really, decidedly, should absolutely not have.

She had the cutest little feet. Stubby little pink toes that were almost always the temperature of the tundra which she remedied by wearing gigantic squeaky slippers with penguins (of all things) on them round the flat. It should've been far too cutesy, but it was just disgustingly endearing. This, of course, was in sharp contrast to the sleek black satin heels she'd occasionally throw on when she was going out with some new bloke; the heels that tightened her strong legs in all the right places, and made her ample, pear-shaped arse stand out against the fabric of her pencil skirt, and she'd walk out the door all sparkles and confidence and leave him to pine and wonder with how much force could she squeeze his hand should it become trapped between her plump thighs...

He shook his head. Enough. Here to help, that was all. "How's it going in there?" He'd managed to keep the tremor out of his voice. Good. 

She clicked the door open and stepped out, giving a slow twirl. "Thoughts?"

He fought to control the blush that threatened to color his cheeks. It was a truly lovely ensemble, but he only had eyes for the way the butter-colored jacket threw light on her face and made her russet-colored hair (for now- it never stayed one color long) shine like flame. He cleared his throat.

"It's... You look lovely. The color's... nice." Lame. Lame even to his own ears. Her face fell just slightly, though, and he nearly smacked himself in the forehead. In trying to tempter his enthusiasm, he'd made her feel bad. "No, Amy, really, it's- it's truly lovely." 

She smiled an indulgent little smile at him, thin but wide lips turning up at the corners. "Maybe the navy next, yeah?" With that, she turned and shut the fitting room door behind her. He groaned inwardly and put his head in his hands. God, he was terrible at this. She needed his help, his advice, for something that was very important to her, and he couldn't get past this damned crush enough to rise to the occasion.

The other problem in his immediate future was that he knew what she meant by "the navy", and that had the potential to cause something else to rise to the occasion. The navy shift. Damn. He adored navy on her. Something about the color caused her lovely pale skin to glow and the roses in her cheeks to bloom like riotous spring. And he was versed enough to know what "shift" meant. 

It meant that her firm arms would be bare, and the fabric would skim lightly over her small, pert breasts, and then travel downwards to stretch over the mound of her belly (which she hated but he loved loved loved), and pucker a bit at the seams as those thick thighs strained against it, and he honestly didn't know how much more of this he could take.

His brain narrowed back in on her belly for a moment, and he- against all his better judgment- allowed himself to momentarily imagine it growing and stretching and filled with life, him laying his head against it, brushing it tenderly with his hands, feeling the little kicks and rolls and stutters within it as she ran her fingers through his curls, so he was caught completely off guard when she stuck her head out of the fitting room door, one bare shoulder visible, and sighed, "A no on the navy. Couldn't even get it down over my apparently massive arse."

She rolled her eyes but there was a smile there, too. She was always comfortable in her body, even if she had (as everyone did, including himself) parts of it she didn't entirely love. She shrugged, still smiling, and he stared. Swallowed. Pull it together, Benedict. She furrowed her brow in concern and he stared a bit longer. Then she snorted, "Ugh. Boys," and threw her hand up in a hopeless gesture before closing the door behind her once more.

Ben didn't know whether to be immensely grateful or sorely disappointed. At least, he thought, he'd escaped what might have been a truly embarrassing public situation. That glimpse of shoulder, though, had a slow heat beginning to creep up his chest and snake onto his neck and he pulled at his shirt collar. This woman was going to be the death of him.

It wasn't enough that she had to wear adorable pyjamas with an old-cat-lady shawl around the flat- he'd grin affectionately and call her "Nana" and she'd slap him on the arm and it'd burn for an hour where her hand had made contact- or that she constantly made him laugh with her sharp wit and think with her amazing intellect and talk him down from dangerous heights of self-doubt with her sincerity. 

Wasn't enough that she'd have him in stitches with tales of her awful dates after she'd get home too early and sling her stilettos in a corner of the sitting room, and he'd rub her little feet while she made unholy little noises, never knowing how dreadfully guilty he felt that the bloke had been a boor and a bore and she wouldn't be seeing him again, and that they could finish out the evening laughing and talking with her legs slung over his.

Not enough that she was just as awful at cooking as he was, and sometimes they nearly starved, but the process of fucking up the meal was so much fun that he almost hated the moment that they'd finally decide to order takeaway. Or that she was kind to everyone she met even though she was certainly no doormat, or that he saw the wistful and somewhat sorrowful and frightened look she got whenever she saw friends with their infants or their bellies because she thought she was getting too old and was too dreadfully single to ever have them herself, or that sometimes when he couldn't get to sleep, she'd slip into his room and sit at the foot of his bed with her legs cris-crossed, and sing to him in a sweet, pure voice that would haunt his heart for days after.

Not enough. And now... Now he had to sit here and watch her come in and out of a fitting room in lovely clothes and/ or varying states of undress, and he knew he was disappointing her, but damn if he could help it. He was helplessly, hopelessly, disgustingly in love with her.

It was time to make a choice. His heart might break into a million pieces when she clammed up and shut down and politely informed him that he was lovely and she cared about him but "not that way" and then proposed that it might be better for both of them if she found alternative housing... Yeah, it would break, all right. Shatter, even. But at least he'd have a) tried, and b) killed that awful, throbbing rawness that came with constantly wondering "what if". 

He was about to start letting his mind play through scenarios, make lists, carefully weigh the proper time and method for presenting his case, when he became aware that someone was hissing at him. He furrowed a brow and glanced around. Was it the shop girl? She was a fan, but really, she'd seemed like a perfectly normal, nice girl, and while sneaking glances from behind shirt rounds was one thing, hissing from behind them was another.

No... no, she was at the register ringing up another customer and fiddling nervously with her statement necklace. 

His eyes shot up to the fitting room. It was coming from in there. Amy. Amy was making that noise? Apparently, yes. She was standing behind the fitting room door hissing his name between her teeth in what sounded like increasing increments of urgency. 

 

He got up and cautiously approached the door, eyebrows embedded in his hairline, and knocked softly. "Amy?" he murmured. "You.. okay?"  
"No, Benedict. I am not okay," she gritted out.

"Wh- what's wrong?" He was beginning to get concerned.

"Is the shop girl looking this way," she asked, desperation in her voice.

Ben glanced round the shop and spotted said shop girl who was still red in the face but was busy stocking shoes with somewhat unnecessary force.

"No, she's busy. Amy, darling, what on earth is the matter?" he pleaded.

"What the matter is, darling, is that I am currently trapped in a dress that costs more than both our shares of the rent with my arm stuck over my head rapidly draining of blood and if I so much as twitch this ungodly garment will rend itself in a thousand little pieces and I will be poor and homeless."

Ben's mouth quirked up into his cheeks and his eyes crinkled. It was a close thing, stifling the belly laugh that bubbled up at the mental image. 

"You utter dick, I can hear you internally giggling at me from here. Get your bloody lush arse in here and help me or I'll rip this thing off and charge you for both it and the ASBO I'll get when I waltz out of here absolutely starkers," she hissed.

He blushed crimson but followed direction like a good boy. Checking to make sure he wasn't being watched (and he was actually rather aggressively not being watched), he contorted himself and managed to slip underneath the gap between the door and the carpet. After getting back to his feet and dusting himself off, he took in the sight before him.

There she was, as described: fitted black dress hiked around her body, nearly strangling her, right arm bent and wrapped around her head, hand dangling listlessly at the end of it, and her face... He went from bubbling laughter to hurtful pangs in an instant. Her eyes had welled with tears and they made rapid rounds between frustration, shame, and fear. They pleaded up through her thick eyelashes as her cheeks burned hot.

"I..." she stammered, lowering her eyes as shame won out. "It was... too tight. And I went to take it off, but the zip got stuck, so I tried to pull it over my head, but it got caught at my arms, and every time I move, it sounds like it's going to shred apart." A reluctant tear trickled down her cheek and his heart broke as she tried to shake it off her chin indignantly.

"Darling," he murmured. "Come on, turn round." 

She did, slowly, and he reached up to carefully examine the zip as their eyes met in the mirror. He smiled affectionately and said, "I'll take care of you, okay?"

"... I know," she whispered, still holding his gaze. Her cheeks flushed even hotter and the air around them changed, charged, crackled with... something. Something that was as bewildering as it was hopeful, and a little flame comprised of both licked up into the cavity of his chest.

He blinked at her, breath held. 

"It's just- you always do," she murmured, lowering her eyes again. 

He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the zip, trying to focus on it. It was caught on a tiny bit of fabric. His nimble fingers began to carefully work it free

"You wouldn't have been poor and homeless, you know," he whispered a bit chidingly, and gooseflesh rose up on her neck as he grazed it with his fingertips while he extricated the bit of fabric from the teeth of the zip. It made his heart pound furiously against the wall of his chest. The fabric finally came free, even though his fingers were shaking slightly, and he pulled the zip down slowly, just enough to allow her to lower her arm with the aid of his hand. 

She sighed, suppressing a shiver, and reached back to take his hand. "I'm not your responsibility, Ben."

His turn to sigh. She worked so hard at not being what she thought of as a burden. It was something that frustrated him to no end, the way she would hardly accept help of any kind, even though he knew how singularly important her independence was to her. He lived simply despite the rising digits each new project brought his bank account; he had a flatmate not because he needed one but because he had a tendency to become too solitary in his downtime. It bothered her, he knew, the discrepancy in their pay. Not that it made her feel lesser that she made less but because she never wanted to be seen as a freeloader, and sometimes people looked at her that way, anyway.

She was always on time, if not early, with her share of the rent and the rest of the bills. When her car broke down, she vehemently refused a loan to get it fixed, and took public transport instead. If they went out or ordered in, they split the bill at her insistence. They even had a strict set amount for birthday gifts and Christmas and he'd caught hell the one time he'd exceeded it by a few pounds.

He shook his head and gulped back a tear. It was now or never. He felt his world tilt on its axis as he flexed his fingers and then laid them gently on either side of her where her shoulders met her arms. 

She looked back up at him in the mirror and her eyes were solemn, fathomless, waiting. He took a breath. It hitched, and he tried again.

Softly, gently, Adam's apple bobbing, he said, "No, you're not. But is it so wrong that I find myself wanting to give you everything, anyway?"

Her eyes went wide and she gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. He refused to look away even though everything in him was screaming at him to open the door and run and run until he couldn't run anymore. There was no backing out of this now. She would know the whole of it, and he'd hold nothing back, and when she made her choice, he'd accept it, whatever bridge that meant he had to cross.

"Benedict?" she whispered through her fingers, another thousand questions in the tremor of her voice. "How- what.. What are you saying?"

He bent, still barely touching her, and pressed a reverent little kiss to the side of her head before resting his forehead against it and breathing deeply to steady himself.

"Months. I've been in love with you- have loved you- for months, now. You always think I want to take care of you because I feel sorry for you or something, and that's ridiculous, because of course I know you can take care of yourself, but I love you, Amy. I love you, and I'd give you everything I had if you'd take it, just because you already have it, anyway."

There. It was done. She'd let him down gently, he knew, because that's who she was.

"Christ, you're an idiot!" she spat.

Well. That was unexpected.

His head shot up and she nearly toppled him into the door as she whipped around, all five feet and three inches of her frame quivering, hands clenched in fists at her sides, black skin-of-a-dress clinging to her heaving chest. Her eyes were ablaze and he was... at a complete loss. He just stared slack-jawed.

"You- you- God, I literally cannot believe how completely stupid you are!"

He reached back with one hand feeling around for the doorknob, mouth still gaping open like a fish.

"Oh, no you don't. You don't get to walk out of here without explaining this to me."

"Ex-" he swallowed. "Explaining what?"

"Ugh!" she exclaimed and put her face in her hands, drawing a deep breath. "Explaining how you could have utterly missed the fact that I've been pining after you- pitifully, I might add- practically since the day you asked me to move in."

He blinked and moved his hand away from the doorknob.

"Wait, you're- are you telling me you feel the same way?"

She dropped her hands from her face and sighed. They were wet and so were her eyes. "Why do you think I kept going on all those awful dates? I'd never be able to have you, so I was trying to get over myself and move on."

He was staring, again. Thoroughly flummoxed. Her words were making absolutely no sense and the confusion was almost enough to overwhelm the seeds of joy that had taken root and were spouting up throughout him. 

"Why on earth would you possibly think you'd never be able to have me?"

Her mouth dropped open and her head gave a tiny shake as if she couldn't believe the enormous stupidity of the question he'd just posed.

"Ben, you're... Come on! You're a- a household name! Nearly every person on this bloody planet recognizes your face, and you've dated actresses and- and models, and- what the hell are you gonna do with someone like me?"

No. Absolutely not. This wasn't how this was going to go. A thread of fury pushed its way through the joy and wrapped itself around his heart. How dare she ever, ever think of herself as anything lesser. 

"Don't", he growled, and took a step toward her. Her eyes widened at the state of his face but she didn't back away. He stood staring down at her defiant eyes for a moment, then brought cool, steady fingers to her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered shut and she bit back a sob, but he said, "Look at me." 

She wouldn't.

"Amy Evans, I said look at me." It was a demand. A demand made in a low, wrecked tone that had her obeying to spite herself. 

"What?" she whispered.

Ben pressed his lips together flat, studying her face in disbelief as he gripped it. "Fuck them. Fuck everyone and their asinine obsession with celebrity. I'm an actor. You're not. Who cares? You are kind and generous and beautiful and funny and- and so fucking smart you leave me reeling, sometimes. How dare you. Don't you ever talk down to yourself again. Don't do it. I won't have it."

Her eyes softened and flicked back and forth between his for a breath. "Do you really love me?" It was barely a whisper.

He smoothed his hands down from her face to her arms and gently squeezed them. "Yes. I do. Do you really love me too?"

She put faltering hands on his abdomen, nervously smoothing his shirt with her thumbs. "Yes, Ben. I do."

He took her hands and placed them around his shoulders, her squeezing them and him leaning down and in till their lips were nearly brushing, a current crackling between them in circuit. "Then I'm not the only one in this fitting room who's an idiot, am I?" he whispered, eyes twinkling. 

She smiled, beamed, then brushed a thumb over his lips, and he shivered and closed the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

Her lips. He’d dreamed of this- even guiltily imagined it during his waking hours- but there was no comparison. Petal-soft and firm and warm as they brushed against and molded to his. He pursed his lips and pressed his kisses up to hers and she sighed and tipped her face back a little more as he wrapped his arms around her and just held. 

Her arms snaked their way around his neck, as far as she could reach, and he exhaled a soft breath against her cheek as her fingertips brushed the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. She was up on her toes, the length of her body pressing into his, and his heart stuttered as he captured his lips again and he realized she was his.

And he was hers.

After so many miserable months of emptiness and raw, he’d finally gotten his shit together, and he was holding her, and she was kissing him, and she had felt the same way all along.

What a pair of idiots they were. But at least they were each other’s idiots, now.

The thought sent longing and pent-up desire streaking through him like a bolt, and he pulled her impossibly closer, bowing her back and setting her gasping as he demanded from her with his tongue. She opened her mouth, half in surprise, and let him invade her, meeting him after a breathless moment with her own. 

He moaned a soft little moan into her warm, slick mouth, and her little hands flew up to grasp at his hair, which only spurred him on. God, he’d thought of it so many times, how her fingers would feel there, tugging and scraping, and it turns out, it was Paradise. 

Then she scraped her teeth lightly along the top of his tongue as he pulled it from her sweet mouth and he had to bend further to bury his face in her neck, nose against racing pulse, and just breathe. 

She held him to herself, panting sweet little puffs of her air into his ear. Finally, she squeaked out a “Shit! Ben!” and pulled back to look at him with wide, horrified eyes.

“What? What is it?” God, what could possibly be wrong?

“We’re making out in a fitting room and everyone can see our feet!” she gasped.

This time, it truly couldn’t be helped. The giggles bubbled up and out, and she soon caught the particular infection, and then they were leaning against each other, him with a hand braced on the wall, as the incongruity of angsty love confessions and passionate first kisses in a spacious but poorly lit boutique fitting room made itself clear. 

“And I’m- Oh God!” she laughed. “I’m still in this ridiculous dress and I feel like a s-sausage in a casing!” 

“And a lovelier, more mouth-watering sausage there never was,” he rejoined, nipping at her jaw with a chuckle.

“Stop that, for God’s sake,” she slapped at him in mock-indignity and pushed him gently away. “I’ve got to get out of this thing..”

He reached out and pulled her back to him, sobered but eyes still twinkling. He skimmed his hands around her sides to her back and cheekily murmured, “I can help with that.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and grinned when she blushed red hot. 

“Benedict Cumberbatch, we are in public.”

His other eyebrow joined the party in a look that said, “and?”

She gaped at him and then threw her head back and laughed again. “Oh, you’re awful!”

His response was to take hold of the zip and begin to draw it down, inch by torturous inch, daring her to stop the proceedings, still trapping her gaze. 

She was blushing all the way down her neck and onto her shoulders now. Her eyes had softened and were full of something like adoration and also something else a little... darker. 

“Our- our feet, Ben...” Her voice had gone husky and low and he could tell even she had heard what a weak protest that was. 

“Hmm,” he pondered, glancing around the floor of the fitting room. “Ah. There we are.” And with no warning whatsoever, he lifted her up and settled them both- her straddling his lap- on the room’s little bench. To her credit, she managed to stifle the surprised squeal, and sat there simply staring at him for a moment. 

His hands left their grip on her hips and reached up to slide the fabric of the dress from her shoulders and she looked down to watch, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

He watched it and was about to question it when he suddenly figured out why it was there. The dress slid off her shoulders and down her arms and down over her breasts... which were utterly, utterly bare, and the color of porcelain, and the dusky pink little nipples were standing out like pencil-tips in the chill air of the shop. 

She glanced up and smiled a bit nervously, and he had just enough time to wonder how the hell he hadn’t noticed while extricating her from the dress that she hadn’t been wearing a bra before every drop of blood in his brain went rushing rapidly southward.

The smirk was wiped off her face, though, as he bit his lip against a full-throated groan and bucked his hips up to meet hers. She made a throaty little gasp and ground down and their centers met. 

“F-Fuck,” he bit out, grasping her hips and pulling her down to meet him again, and she whined his name. “Shh.. Oh, God- got to be... quieter, darling...” he reprimanded, thrusting up again for emphasis.

She was rolling her hips down into his frantically and her wet heat sent tremors up through his body, making his already throbbing cock impossibly harder. He fought back everything he wanted, needed to voice as he leaned his head down and wrapped his lips around one of those perfect pink nipples. She grasped his head and pulled his mouth further onto her, sliding forward those last few inches, and they were as joined as they could be through the layers of their clothes.

He lavished and laved, nipped and grazed, and brought the other hand up to roll and tweak at the nipple with which his mouth wasn’t so wonderfully occupied. 

She held and rode and gasped out little uh-uh-uhs and he switched sides because those heavenly little tips deserved so much more than equal amounts of his devotion.

“Ben... Ben...” She was whispering his name like a little prayer with their rhythm, fingers tripping over the ridges of his scalp like rosary beads, and he couldn’t help wrapping his arms around her now-slick back and milking her. 

The riding and bucking stopped abruptly and he pulled back and looked at her face in time to see it painted with ecstasy, mouth slack, eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught of the expanding and contracting tremors that had overtaken her. 

“Jesus, Amy... Christ,” he whispered, holding on and watching in awe as she came undone in his arms. He’d done that. No; they’d done that. And there was still... still everything to do together. To each other. With each other.

She was panting as she came down and she melted against his chest, open mouth falling against his ear. 

“God, Amy... I- God.” 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her eyes to his and he thought he could happily drown in the love and naked lust of which there were volumes written there. 

“I want to make love with you,” she murmured against his lips and his heart soared.

“Of course, my love. God, Amy, I- Let’s go home, and-”

“No, Ben. You don’t understand.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed back just slightly, rocking herself back onto his trapped cock, both of them exhaling quiet little moans. He stared at her, questioning.

She licked her lips, pink tongue flicking out to wet it, and cocked her head.

“What I mean is... I want to make love with you... tonight. At home. All night. And I want it to be slow and happy and lovely.”

He nodded, perplexed, still not sure what the problem was, considering that was most definitely his plan.

She smiled and shook her head, then leaned in and nipped the lobe of his ear, and whispered, “But right now, in this fitting room, I need you to fuck me. Or we won’t make it home it all.”

“Ooooh, God,” he groaned, screwing his eyes shut and shuddering against her. 

“Please?”

His breath was coming in short bursts and he attacked her mouth, growling into it softly. 

“Yes?” she breathed against his lips.

“Shit, Amy,” he gritted out, taking her face in his hands and searching her eyes, seeing the need there. “Yes. Y-yes.”

In a heartbeat, she’d reached between them, and having much better luck with zips this time, freed his straining, rigid cock, and was stroking it adoringly in her little hand. She looked down and so did he, and while her breath caught at the first sight of him (“Oh, Benedict, you’re lovely” in a breathy little coo), his caught at how completely perfect they looked as parts of them joined together. 

She leaned forward and captured his bottom lip between both of hers, then sat up on his lap and reached between them with the other hand to pull her knickers aside, looking up at him imploringly between her lashes. 

He moaned her name into the air between them and gently pried her hand from his length, grasping himself instead. With the other hand, he threaded gentle fingers through her hair to cup her skull and tried not to cry out as he slicked the head of his cock against her wet, scorching folds. 

Her long lashes fluttered but she held his eyes as she slowly sank down, sliding him in, inch by inch, until she was fully seated on top of him, and he was fully seated inside of her. 

His eyes were wide and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye. He didn’t dare let go to brush it away. Instead he slid his hands across her beautiful full belly and gripped her hips, fingers bunching in the fabric still around them.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“God, I love you,” he whispered back, and she whimpered and ground down, hips swiveling. 

That was it. She was right. The time for making love was later; this was the time for marking and taking and slaking long, heavy thirst; early autumn rain on dry, brittle earth so the dormant seeds could flourish.

She pulled back up and he yanked her back down onto him, and repeat, and repeat, warm slick depths engulfing him, fitting him perfectly every time, and she was crying “perfect” into his mouth as quietly as she could, and it was all he could do not to weep into her hair because, yes, it was so stunningly, breathtakingly perfect.

Thrust and thrust and part and join, and he risked a glance down because he needed to see, had to see the evidence of heaven with his eyes, and oh that might have been the wrong idea because he was suddenly burying himself in her as deep as he could do, deeper even because with each thrust she’d buried herself deeper in his heart, and he had half a moment to be ashamed because he’d wanted to give her the pleasure first, but wait, she was shuddering against him too, and he felt something warm and wet trickle down his neck as she collapsed against him resting her head there and gasping for air. 

His arms came up around her, wrapping her in, enveloping her body against his even as she enveloped his inside of hers.

For a moment or an hour they simply rested in and outside of and against each other. 

He tilted her chin up and her eyes were bright and sated. She smiled, and he returned it, meeting her kiss with a grin still plastered all the way across his face. 

“Home?” he said.

She giggled and it wound around his heart.

“Home,” she replied, decisively.

Just then, there was a tentative knock on the door. “Erm... Is... everything all right in there,” the shop girl queried with what Benedict could swear was a bit of a jealous smirk in her voice.

“Shit!” Amy whispered, clapping her hand over her mouth.

Well. Wasn’t this going to be fun getting out of.


End file.
